


«My pearl!»

by Julie_Anne



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: All inside his mind, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 19:37:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10771032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Julie_Anne/pseuds/Julie_Anne
Summary: I don’t know if I have the right to write this. I’m terribly afraid of spoiling something so beautiful. Yet, the words were all popping in my head and asking to be written. So, I am sorry if it spoils anything…





	«My pearl!»

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bittergreens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittergreens/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Over Fathoms Deep](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1744148) by [bittergreens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittergreens/pseuds/bittergreens). 



«My pearl!». The two words are still ringing in his ears. «My pearl!»

He has never been loved before, therefore he has no way of knowing if it always feels like this. He has no way of knowing if love is always this explosive mixture of elation and agony, this irrational desire to merge into another person’s body and soul so they may become one and stop time forever. John is the sweetest person he’s ever met, and has whispered in Sherlock’s ears the most incredible words of endearment. Still, these two words are special. He keeps hearing them inside his head, said in John’s deep golden voice, like a song one cannot forget.

«My pearl!» He digs through all his memories to find and bring to surface all he’s ever learned about pearls. How they are created from a single grain of sand hurting the oyster, covered in thousands of thin layers of nacre until the pain becomes beauty and sheen. How the oyster has to die in order to deliver that one drop of wondrous beauty.

He closes his eyes and tries to see again all the pearls he has ever seen. The perfect round white pearls of his mother’s necklace, softly glowing against the deep dark blue velvet where they are usually kept. The amazing beauty of the single drop shaped rose pearl earring worn by a beautiful young man in a small painted portrait he saw somewhere. The almost translucent shimmer of baroque pearls that form the body of a mermaid or the bulk of a ship in ancient jewels at the cabinet where a strange old man his father is acquainted with keeps curious and exotic things. And the shy glimmer of the minute seed pearls from one of his mother’s embroidered dresses.

Is that the image John has of him? All that beauty, all those colours, the milky white, the blushing rose, the stormy grey, the radiant black and the greenish turquoise? The smooth curves, the softened angles? That lovely iridescence where the curves catch the light? Can he really be that beautiful in John’s eyes?

He remembers reading how pearls are, in a way, living things that have to be touched by living, warm human skin, or they will become dull and die.

Sherlock recoils into his own amazing memory, layers upon layers of all things he remembers happening to him. Maybe all everybody sees of him is the oyster shell, rough and full of cutting edges, ready to hurt, to cut, to draw blood. And inside, born of all the pain, perhaps he really is the pearl. He knows he will never be as good as John is with words, but he can picture it like a poem (or like music, yes, like music, he is good at that), how John managed to see past the shell directly to the beauty and the glimmer inside. It takes love to see through the thick uneven shell, to be able to touch the tender, fragile flesh inside and draw the pearl to light, it takes living, warm, human touch to keep it alive. But then again that is what John does best.

So maybe Sherlock is a pearl encased in John’s golden arms. Maybe…

 

There are quite a few beautiful paintings of young men in pearl earrings. I found [this one](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/6f/63/80/6f6380d2c8f3a97e62f0c2dd40519344.jpg) and I think it works.

 


End file.
